Wearable fitness tech might be useless without a coach. The real key to continued movement is relationships. As cool as these devices are, fitness researchers have discovered that they aren’t getting people moving. Instead, Garmin, Apple, Whoop, Fitbit and others are actually just logging humanity’s slow decline into sedentarism.
On May 4th this year, three professors of kinesiology released a study on physical activity levels during the period when fitness tracking devices became increasingly popular. The results are not good:
“Our systematic review of data from eight developed nations around the world shows that despite the surge in sales of fitness trackers, physical activity declined from 1995 to 2017.”
The people who are moving less? Those who are being raised on screens.
“Our most striking finding was how sharply physical activity declined among adolescents ages 11 to 19 years—by roughly 30%—in the span of a single generation.” According to the researchers, adolescents are taking almost 1,500 fewer steps per day than they used to. While the study wasn’t designed to figure out why people are moving less, it did offer some insight—and it’s exactly what you would expect. Decreased levels of activity are associated with increases in screen time, decreases in physical education and increased levels of automobile use.
Devices just don’t provide the things that are needed to get people moving: “Successfully increasing one’s overall physical activity requires several additional factors such as goal setting, self-monitoring, positive feedback and social support,” the kinesiologists wrote. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Peloton, Mirror and other high-end at-home fitness gadgets won’t be able to supply this stuff either.
Fitness trackers are really just toys. They might fit into a training regimen, but they don’t provide a reason to get moving or enough support when people don’t get moving. They log effort but don’t supply the will to expend it. They notice when you skip a workout but don’t have the weight to make you hit the next one as planned. Cool as it might be, new fitness tech is still the equivalent of the dusty bedroom treadmill with a week’s worth of clothes draped on it.
So if you’re a regular gym goer, take heart, if you’re considering joining a gym, take action! Peloton and whoop cannot replace a coach, trainer or gym owner asking you how you’re feeling today, sending you a message to keep you accountable or giving you that motivation mid-workout to continue on successfully. The Mirror will be available at garage sales in two years. And fitness trackers are mainly being used to log decreasing levels of activity.
The real key to continued movement is relationships. Finding a workout buddy who holds you accountable at 5am, paying a coach to educate, entertain and inspire you. Or maybe just joining the gym down the road so you actually have a place to go each day with the added benefit that it’s full of high-quality fitness equipment. I know which I can rely on!
As always team, if you have questions, concerns or just need to chat, you know where to find me!
– Coach Z
